Perhaps Not the Best Idea
by Dejableue
Summary: The first time Danny sleeps with his boss is late on the Night of the Tabloids. The second time it happens is completely different. There's not going to be a third time. They both agree on that.
1. Chapter 1

The first time Danny sleeps with his boss is late on the Night of the Tabloids. He thinks of it that way in his head, with capital letters, as if it's the title of a cheap black-and-white horror film. He's hidden the actual tabloids, and the cruel, damning stories in them, but of course it doesn't do any good. What's been seen can't be unseen.

When midnight rolls around, Kirsty excuses herself and goes home, having finally reached the limits of her tolerance for over-sauced pasta and crap DVDs. Scott, of course, is still up north, probably doing lines in the toilet at some overpriced bar, and too far away to be any help.

That leaves Danny alone with Jo, and to be honest, he's not quite certain what to do about her.

She's curled up in the corner of his sofa, eyes glazed and red from hours of wine and crying—not noisy sobbing, that's not like Jo, but a slow trickle of tears that she had tried to hide and he and Kirsty had tried to ignore. Her hair's a mess. He wants to wrap her in blankets and tell her everything will be okay, but he doesn't know if it really will be.

He sits down at the opposite end of the sofa to her.

"Jo?"

"Mmm?"

"It's getting late."

She turns to look at him, slowly, as if her head weighs too much for her neck. "Is it?"

"It is, and you need some rest. Come on. You can have my room."

The sheets on his bed aren't the cleanest, but Jo doesn't seem to notice. He's given her one of his T-shirts to wear, a frayed old thing that he got at a festival years ago, and it stops at mid-thigh on her, revealing a lot of slender, lovely leg that he really ought not to be seeing. He tucks the duvet round her, pats her awkwardly on the shoulder and leans over her to switch off the bedside lamp, and that's when she looks up at him and says, "Don't go, Danny."

Much later, he'll console himself with the knowledge that he tried to talk her out of it. He tells her now that she's upset, she's had too much to drink, she'll wish they hadn't. It isn't that he doesn't fancy her—he does, always has, even in the deepest depths of his infatuation with Kirsty—but he also knows her well enough to know that she's ashamed of her weak moments and makes up for them later with brittle anger. He doesn't want to be punished for doing the wrong thing while trying to do the right one. But even in this state, Jo is still a force to be reckoned with, and eventually his desire to please her wins out over his fear of making a mistake. He thinks of Kirsty again, briefly, but decides this has nothing to do with her. This is about him and Jo. And it isn't as if Kirsty has ever passed up sex with someone else on his account, is it? Definitely not.

Next thing he knows, he's in the bed too, and his brain is coming apart because his tongue is in MP Jo Porter's mouth and his hands are on her breasts, and she's not killing him, which is the outcome he would have expected under any other circumstances. She's kissing him back, and it feels like one of those thrilling, forbidden teenage wet dreams that always featured some completely inappropriate person—his maths teacher, or his best mate's sister, or the lady who ran the corner shop. Any minute, he thinks, he'll wake up in his old bedroom at home. Any minute...any minute...

Just as things are reaching a critical point, Jo blurts out, all in a rush, that it's the first time since she had the baby and she's sure it will be fine, but please can he be careful just in case? She offers an embarrassed little smile and Danny says of course, but on the inside he's thinking _shit shit SHIT_. He doesn't want to hurt her, but he also doesn't want to have to worry about hurting her. It's another layer of complication in a situation that's already so complicated he needs a map and compass to navigate it, and for a moment he considers just calling the whole thing off. But she looks so vulnerable, and she is so clearly trusting him with this information—which reveals, he thinks, a lot about what's been going on between her and Iain—that he can't bring himself to.

So he's as careful as he knows how to be, and it's not bad. In fact, it's pretty good, although considering he's gone without for even longer than she has, he's none too certain of his own judgment on the topic. Jo seems to enjoy it, and that's what really matters. Or so he tells himself after she's fallen asleep, one of her hands clasping one of his, as if she wants to make sure he won't leave when she's not looking.

He suspects that in the morning they won't talk about it, and they don't. Jo is drawn and shaky with hangover, and she spends a long time in the bathroom while he makes tea and toast in the empty kitchen. Danny deliberately leaves the television and radio switched off while they eat, wanting to protect her from the news for as long as possible. It's a futile effort, but it's all he can do.

Rain speckles the windows, and Jo says she had better get to her mum's house. She'll see him in the office later. Thanks for everything, she says, and leaves without ceremony.

It's not what he wants, but he thinks it's probably what he deserves.


	2. Chapter 2

The second time it happens is completely different.

All three of them are coming down off the high of a successful vote, and Jo is flushed and happy and fully in command of herself. They can't go to the pub to celebrate now that she's not drinking, so they go for a walk instead and she buys ice creams for him and Kirsty, as if they're kids. He imagines that she probably does the same thing for her little boy when she has her time with him at the weekends, but it seems best not to dwell on that too much.

As this is running through his head, Jo, who has been rummaging for something in her handbag, looks up and catches him watching her, and he grins a bit guiltily.

"Want my Flake?"

He pulls it out of the ice cream and offers it like a prize, and she takes it, then smiles up at him and says thanks. Her eyes are bright with the simple pleasure of being out of the office on a rare sunny afternoon, and it's nearly enough to make his heart explode. He wishes all their days could be like this, but at the same time he knows both he and she need the intense, challenging times that come with the job, too. It would be dull if things were always easy.

With Jo occupied by chocolate, he looks round for Kirsty and finds her half turned away, eating her ice cream as fast as she can. Kirsty doesn't like to share, which is something Danny has come to accept; after months of struggle, he's learnt that the way to be friends with Kirsty is to take her as she is and not expect her to change. When he shared this insight with Jo, she laughed and said he was growing up at last. He's still not certain whether he should be pleased or annoyed by that.

They stroll and chat for another quarter-hour, and then Jo says that she's going home early for once, and they both should as well. Danny looks at Kirsty—just because Jo can't go for a drink doesn't mean the two of them can't—but Kirsty says she's going to see if they can fit her in at the hairdressers. Split ends, she says, tossing her mane of perfect waves over her shoulders in a gesture that makes Jo roll her eyes behind Kirsty's back. The three of them go their separate ways, and he thinks that will be it until tomorrow. It'll do him good to have an evening in. Maybe he'll even read something that's not for work.

Once he's at home, though, he can't seem to settle, going from book to book and never getting through more than a page or two, and he's not sorry at all when his mobile rings and it's Jo with a question about some documents he compiled for her. He starts to talk her through them on the phone, but then looks at the spill of abandoned books, thinks how bored he'll be if he's left alone with them, and asks if he can just come round and show her in person.

He's out the door, jacket in hand, almost before she's finished saying yes.

These days, Iain lives in the house that he and Jo used to share, with the baby and the Macedonian (or was it Moldavian?) nanny, who is soon to be the new Mrs Porter, and Jo has a flat that she hasn't bothered to decorate because she only uses it to sleep and shower. Danny has visited it twice before, and both times found it a muddle of cardboard boxes with the tape still on, lamps sitting on the floor, and pictures leaning propped against the walls, waiting to be hung up properly. Jo says she'll wait until the summer, when things are quieter, and sort it all out in one go, but he'll believe that when he sees it.

When he's almost there, he realises he hasn't eaten since the ice cream and is starving. Jo is unlikely to have anything but the biscuits and milk and fish fingers she buys for her son's visits, and he doesn't want to be fed a toddler's dinner, so he detours to a Thai restaurant in the next road over and gets an enormous takeaway that makes her laugh when she opens the door.

"Christ, Danny, did you leave anything there for other people to eat?"

"Not my problem," he says, grinning. "Can I come in?"

It's a little better in the flat than the last time—the boxes have all been unpacked and cleared away, at any rate—but it still feels cold and unfinished, and as if no one really lives there, which he supposes is not too far from the truth. They sit at Jo's glass-topped table and eat tom kha kai and yellow curry and fried rice with crab while they go over the documents, and at last Jo puts down her pencil and says it's enough for one evening.

"You sure? I can keep going..."

Jo shakes her head. "I've decided to take advantage of the times when I don't have to keep working all night. It makes up for all the times when I do." She folds up the top of the Thai container closest to her, tucking in the flaps and smoothing them down precisely, as if it's important to get it just right. "You don't have to go yet, though, if you don't want to. We could watch the news. Or talk. In fact, I think we should talk."

"Why? Am I being sacked?"

He's only joking, but Jo looks shocked.

"No! Of course not. It's just that we never did after that night, the one when—"

"I'm pretty sure I know the one you mean," Danny says. He wasn't expecting this and feels wrong-footed, worried that he's finally going to catch it after all these months. It's not that he's forgotten what happened between them—it would be difficult to forget—but he's tried hard to put it out of his daily thoughts and carry on as usual, and he thinks he's been mostly successful.

"Yes. That one." Jo's gaze is level and steady, but there's a faint blush of colour high on her cheekbones. "I know it's been ages and I should have said something before, but, well—you know how much else was going on at the time."

"You don't have to say anything now," he says. He can hear a pleading note in his voice and hates himself for it, but can't seem to stop. "It wasn't your fault. You were drunk."

"I've used being drunk as an excuse for a lot of things in the past, Danny, but not for this one. I wasn't so drunk I didn't know what I was doing. I knew you were sorry for me—almost as sorry as I was for myself—and I took advantage of that to get you to do what I wanted. I shouldn't have done it and I apologise. I just—I wanted to feel as if someone cared about me."

"I did care about you. I _do._ "

"I know," Jo says, very softly. She glances down at her discarded pencil and rolls it back and forth on the tabletop with one finger. Her left hand still looks bare without her wedding ring, and he wonders if it feels strange to her. He knows she doesn't love Iain anymore, after all the betrayals, but they had been married for ten years and it must have been familiar, if nothing else. How could anyone blame her for feeling cast adrift?

"I have an idea," he says.

"What?"

"Suppose we have another go at it—no one pissed, no one guilty, everyone fully consenting."

Jo's face looks like a master painter's rendition of disbelief. "Really, Danny? I've just finished apologising to you for making you have sex with me, and you're inviting me to do it again? What sort of fucking idea is that?"

"A serious one," Danny says. "We can't take the first time back, but we can have a time that you don't feel bad about. Sort of like a reset. Make sense?"

"No," Jo says, "it doesn't make sense at all."

"But would you like to?"

She stares at him, as if she's searching his face for some sort of deception or mockery, and he thinks he might be about to get sacked after all, or at least chucked out of her flat, but then slowly, incredibly, she nods.

"Only if you really mean it, Danny."

"I really, really mean it."

"Oh," she says, and suddenly she smiles—not the practised smile that she gives to constituents and television presenters, but the soft, lovely one that he only sees once in a blue moon. "Well, then...I suppose I would."

She takes him to her bedroom, which he hasn't seen on either of his previous visits, and which is tiny and cream-painted and mostly filled by a double bed. The duvet is pale blue with daisies, which seems like an oddly girly choice for Jo, but perhaps it was a gift from someone. Inside the open wardrobe are clothes that he recognises from seeing her wear them to work: a grey ribbed jumper, a bright green silk blouse, a black skirt. Her dressing gown is hanging from a hook on the back of the bedroom door, and this small detail seems almost overwhelmingly intimate. He's not sure how he can have seen her naked, touched her everywhere, been inside her, and still feel shaken by the sight of a dressing gown, but he does.

"Danny?" Jo puts a hand on his arm. "Are you okay? It's all right if you've changed your mind."

"I haven't. Of course I haven't."

He's hesitant to make the first move, even though this was his idea, and it's a relief when Jo helps him out by pulling his face down to hers and kissing him. She's as good at it as he remembers, maybe even better because she's sober now, and he stops worrying and just lets things happen.

It's not complicated at all this time. Everything is very simple, and he loves it, and her.

Their clothes are all over the floor and Jo's on top of him, looking down with that intent expression she gets when she's concentrating hard on something. Her dark hair is slipping out of its tidy French twist (he knows it's a French twist because of Kirsty, who once spent a slow afternoon at work looking up the instructions for doing one) and he reaches up and tries to tuck the stray pieces back into place, which makes her laugh a bit breathlessly. She catches hold of his hand and presses it to her lips.

"What would I do without you, Danny?"

"You'd be fine."

"Would I?"

"You know you would." He touches her cheek, not quite caressing. "But you'll never have to find out."

Jo leans in to kiss him again, and he wraps his arms round her and thinks this has turned out to be an excellent idea after all.


	3. Chapter 3

There's not going to be a third time. They both agree on that.

After their reset, Jo wakes him up at two in the morning and tells him he has to go home. He doesn't want to, but he knows she's right. The newspapers would be all over her if someone spotted him strolling out the front door of her flat in broad daylight, and after the events of last year, her career can't bear any more scandal for a while. So even though he would much rather stay, he gets up and starts sorting out his discarded clothes from hers in the dim light of the bedside lamp while she watches, sitting up cross-legged in a tangle of duvet.

When he's dressed and ready to leave, he sits down on the edge of her bed, pushes sleep-wild hair out of her face and kisses her softly on the mouth. Jo isn't one to cling, but she kisses him back and rests her forehead against his for a minute before saying that she's loved this, it was just what she needed, but you know it can't happen again, don't you, Danny?

Yes, of course, he says, and marvels at the fact that he can say those words and mean them completely, and at the same time not mean them at all. He wants to tell her that she's only the third woman he's ever slept with, which is true, and that it's still important to him in a way it probably isn't to her. But he's wiser now than he has been in the past—no doubt more of that pesky growing-up business—and he knows this revelation will do nothing but make things awkward. Jo smiles, pleased that he understands, and kisses him again, on the cheek this time.

He lets himself out.

True to their word, they do not do it again, and after a bit he manages to stop thinking about it, though doing so is much more difficult than the last time. He does research for Jo and books her travel and fetches her coffee, and in between those tasks she does her best to teach him and encourage him to take on more challenging work when he can. As autumn comes on, Kirsty finally lands the position she's been angling for and leaves, and Danny finds it's easier to wish her well and say goodbye than he ever could have imagined a year ago.

In the wake of her departure, he goes out twice with a girl he meets on a bus, but it fizzles out before they get round to going to bed together. Shortly afterward, he has a dream in which he is being interrogated in a dark room by some faceless authority and is forced to admit that the last person he had sex with was Joanne Porter—yes, _that_ Joanne Porter.

Shortly after that, he realises that something is wrong with Jo.

It's subtle, not like the extravagant, public crashing and burning of her marriage, and so when he finally notices it, he can't pinpoint exactly when it began. She's still smartly dressed, hair sleek and lipstick intact, but she's paler and more tired than usual, with deeper shadows under her eyes. He knows she isn't ill—he manages her diary and every minute of her day is accounted for, so if she were seeing a doctor, he would know about it. But she's in her office at odd hours, sometimes beating him there in the morning, always still in front of her computer no matter how late he pops his head in to say goodnight, and when he makes a little joke about unlocking the chains attaching her to her desk, she looks scared and evasive instead of amused or annoyed. It all adds up to a big, flashing red sign that keeps him awake at night with worrying.

After a few weeks of this, he thinks enough is enough and decides just to ask. It certainly won't be the first time he's broached an uncomfortable subject with her, and even though they're pretending nothing intimate has ever happened between them, it has, and that changes things. He tries to find a good moment to bring it up, but Jo seems to sense that he's up to something and wriggles out of every situation when they might be alone together: she is forever rushing out of her office as he's coming in, or summoning Kirsty's replacement—a spotty, nervous bloke called Jeremy—to join in on meetings that ought to be just the two of them.

Finally, in frustration, he comes up with an alternate plan, and when the next Friday evening rolls around, he puts it into action.

He pretends to leave at his usual time, and in fact he does exit the building, because he wouldn't put it past Jo to somehow find out if he hasn't. He mooches about for a bit, buys a magazine, eats a kebab, sits on a bench and people-watches, and finally, at half eleven, goes back and makes his way through the nighttime security, then up to their office, where he finds Jo standing and looking out the window near his desk. She's taken off the jacket she was wearing earlier, and he can see the slides on her bra straps and the sharp wings of her shoulder blades through the thin material of her button-down shirt. Something about the sight strikes him as terribly human and vulnerable, and for a moment he's worried he's going to cry.

"What are you doing here?"

"Christ!" Jo starts and turns around, paper-white under the fluorescent overhead lights. "I could ask the same thing of you. I thought you went home hours ago."

"I came back to see you."

"What on earth for? You saw me all day long. If you had a question, you could have phoned."

"Not with this question." He takes a step toward her. "I want to know what's going on with you, Jo. Something's been the matter for at least a month or two now. You're here at all hours, even when you don't need to be, and you look like you haven't slept in a year. I don't want to stick my nose into your private business—"

Even in distress, Jo can't hold back a splutter of laughter at that. "You're always in my private business, Danny. I don't know why I'm even surprised that you're here. It was bound to happen eventually."

"I'm worried about you," he says simply, and she shakes her head.

"It's nothing, Danny. I'm fine."

"For fuck's sake, Jo. I know when you're fine and when you're not." A terrible thought occurs to him. "You haven't been drinking again, have you?"

He expects her to get angry and tell him off for this—in fact, he rather hopes she will—and it frightens him when her face crumples and she turns away again.

"Jo? Have you?"

"No. Really, no. I haven't."

"It sounds like there's a 'but' in there somewhere." Now he crosses the room to stand just behind her, wanting to touch her but knowing that in this mood, she'll only shrug him off if he does. He can see their dual reflection faintly in the black window, his own face looking anxious and hers looking pinched and miserable, as if he's hurting her with every word that comes out of his mouth. Lights shimmer on the water outside, a string of diamonds against the velvet dark.

Jo glances up at him over her shoulder, both ashamed and defensive. "But I've wanted to. Not all the time, only when I'm at home alone in the evenings. I have my call, you know—"

Danny nods. He knows that part of her hard-won agreement is the right to a nightly ten-minute call with her son, to say goodnight and read him a story over the phone. It's in the diary as well.

"And then after that it's quiet, and I start thinking that I could have just one glass of wine and then stop, but I don't know if I would stop, and that scares me. So..."

"So you're staying here instead."

"Yes." Jo brushes past him, sits down on the corner of his desk and fidgets with one of the little plastic toys he keeps there, a purple wind-up dinosaur.

"Erm," Danny says. "Don't take this the wrong way, Jo, but being alone in the office late at night didn't exactly prevent you from drinking before."

"No, it didn't." She pinches the winding stem on the dinosaur's side between her thumb and forefinger and starts twisting it, head bowed as intently over the task as if she's disarming a bomb. "But I don't keep bottles in my office anymore, and with the security on duty, I can't just pop out and buy one without someone noticing. And I certainly can't hit the nearest pub, not after what happened the last time. So it does work, but it means I'm here a lot. I've even slept here a few times and gone home to change before anyone else gets in."

"Oh my God, Jo."

"Don't," she says sharply, looking up at last. "I haven't had a drink and I'm not going to, so there's no need for you to wring your hands over me."

"I'm not," Danny says, "just wishing you'd told me."

"What could you have done about it?" She puts the dinosaur down and it trundles off the edge of the desk and falls onto the ugly industrial carpeting, where it lies on its side with its stumpy legs still going.

"I could have stayed too, to keep you company. It's not as if I've got anything else pressing on in the evenings, and—"

Jo makes an impatient gesture. "It's not your job to be my after-hours minder. You've done enough of that in the past. If you haven't got a life of your own, you ought to be out getting one, not sitting around trying to protect your pathetic boss from herself."

"You're not pathetic, and you're not just my boss. You're my friend too, aren't you? And you've been more than that a few times, even if we're pretending it never happened." He gives in to the urge and puts a hand on her back; she flinches, but doesn't stop him. "Just let me sit with you, Jo. That's all I want to do."

He can see the struggle on her face, and it breaks his heart. He's certain she's going to reject him, push him away, order him to go home, but then she sags, as if in defeat, and says "All right. Come on."

Her office is nearly dark, with all the lights switched off except for the small green-shaded desk lamp, and as they sit side by side on the sofa, Danny can only see bits of her: the angle of a cheekbone, the pale column of her throat. Tentatively, he puts his arm round her, and to his relief, she accepts it. Her hair smells of something vaguely floral; he pushes it away from her face and feels her body soften as some of the the stiffness ebbs out of her.

"Thanks, Danny."

"For what?"

"For not leaving me."

"Have I ever left you before?"

"No." Jo rearranges herself so her head rests in the hollow of his shoulder, and he feels the ticklish exhalation of her breath across his neck as she speaks. "Not even when you probably should have."

"Well, when I told you that you'd never have to get along without me, I meant it." He pauses. "You know I still care about you a lot, don't you, Jo?"

"I know." Jo finds his hand and squeezes it. "I care about you a lot too. Even when I'm being horrible."

She's quiet for a long time after that, first playing absentmindedly with a button on his shirt and then just lying there against him, getting warmer and more relaxed by the minute, until he starts to worry that they'll both fall asleep and be caught when Jeremy arrives in the morning. It's a situation he can't imagine ending well, and he nudges her to break the spell.

"Jo, you awake?"

"Barely." She stifles a yawn and shifts position, sitting up straighter without moving away. Danny can just make out the fine, delicate outlines of her features, so close to him, and suddenly he can't resist and leans over to kiss her. He means for it to be a chaste kiss, more or less, but the touch seems to bring something to life in her, and she draws a breath that is almost a gasp and crushes her mouth against his.

She's taken to eating Polo mints by the packet since she stopped drinking, and the cool bite of peppermint is what he tastes on her now; he sucks gently on her lower lip, and she lets out a little moan that makes him feel almost frantic. One of his hands is tangled in her hair, the other cupping a breast, and then she's straddling him with a knee on either side, and he realises he's already hard, as if his body is three steps ahead of his mind.

He groans, and Jo lets go of him for a moment and leans back, studying him.

"We said we wouldn't do this again."

"I know."

"But we're going to anyway."

"Looks like it."

"Are you sure...?"

"You keep asking me that." He hopes he sounds confident and not petulant, but it's hard to tell. "I know how to say no. Even that first time, I still could've said no if I'd really wanted to. And, you may not be aware of this, Jo, but you are really, really gorgeous. Even if I didn't love you, shagging you wouldn't exactly be a hardship. The fact that I do actually love you just makes it better."

Jo bites her lip, looking troubled. "You shouldn't love me, Danny. Not like that. I'll end up hurting you somehow. I don't want to—God knows I don't—but I will."

"I'll worry about that when it happens," Danny says firmly.

Even though it's after midnight now, there are still people in the building, so they lock her office door just in case before he lays her down on the sofa. From their two previous encounters, he knows that her taste in knickers runs to soft lace-trimmed cotton—not overtly sexy, but not totally utilitarian either—and those are what he finds underneath her skirt when he pushes it up. He works them off her and tucks them into his pocket for safekeeping.

"I hope you don't think you're keeping those." Jo looks up at him, and even in this position, partially undressed and flat on her back, somehow there's still a steely note of authority in her voice.

"Just making sure we don't forget them." Danny strokes the smooth flesh of her thigh and grins as she tenses underneath his hand. He's gone down on her once before, but it was on the infamous Night of the Tabloids, and he thinks she may have been too pissed to remember much about it. She'd told him then, while drunk, that Iain hated it and would only do it grudgingly, and he is determined to be better than Iain in every possible way, so he's looking forward to trying again, presuming that his willingness will make up for any flaws in his technique. He coaxes her legs apart, settles himself between them and sets to work, and Jo immediately makes a stifled, desperate sound and grabs at him as if she isn't sure whether to pull him closer or push him away.

"Relax, Jo. I love doing this."

He keeps going until she's squirming under him, one hand on his head and the other one over her own mouth, trying to be quiet. There's tension in every one of her muscles; he can feel it coiling and tightening, and then she arches up with a muffled groan and he stays with her through it, until she subsides and is still again. He sits up just in time to see a single tear slide from one closed eye—its glitter just visible in the dim light—and fall off sideways into her hair.

Danny traces the damp trail on her cheek with a fingertip. "What's this about?"

"Just relief, I suppose. It's been too long." She lets out a long breath, opens her eyes and reaches for him. "Come and have yours."

"We haven't got a condom."

"Fuck it. I don't care." Jo pulls him down on top of her.

"Is it safe?"

"Safe enough."

Danny hesitates, and she gives him a little squeeze. "It's _fine_ , Danny. Do you really think I'd let you if it weren't?"

"No," he confesses. He knows she wouldn't. Jo has always been willing to take a calculated risk when she thinks the reward is worth it, but she's never lied to him. If she says it's safe, it is.

It's his first time going bare—none of his short-lived relationships, if they can be called that, lasted long enough to get to that point—and his mind is nearly blown by the luxurious silky-wet warmth of being inside her with nothing between them. He manages to keep quiet all the way to the end, and then he can't hold back a cry and Jo shushes him, pulling his face against her neck to stifle the noise.

"Sorry—"

"It's all right." She kisses the top of his head, ruffles his sweaty hair, and though these things would normally make him feel like an awkward teenager, this time they just feel like Jo is loving him in the best way she can. There's not enough room on the sofa for them to really lie side by side, but he manages to shift over a bit and prop himself up on one elbow so at least he's not crushing her.

"Can we just give up pretending and admit that we like doing this?" he asks, and she laughs, a real, warm laugh that makes a weight he's only been half aware of fall away from his heart.

"Yes, Danny, we can."

"And we don't really want to stop?"

"Even if we did, we're not very good at stopping, are we?"

"We're shit at it, actually," Danny says, which makes her laugh again before growing abruptly serious.

"I said yes and I meant it, but Danny, I want you to think hard first about what you're getting into. It'll always have to be secret like this, and we can't do it too often or someone will find out, and then I'll be done for."

"That's okay."

"Is it? Because I'm not sure you're cut out for that sort of thing. You're the one who's overflowing with scruples, remember? You feel good about it now, while your cock's still wet and your brain's bathing in oxytocin, but how are you going to feel six months from now when you're sneaking around and staying behind to slip me one in the office late at night?"

"Jesus, Jo, you don't have to make it sound so filthy."

"I'm making it sound exactly the way other people would make it sound if they knew. And it's not just that. I'm almost fourteen years older than you are, Danny; I'm divorced; I've got a child I'm barely allowed to see. I'm a borderline alcoholic—maybe a genuine honest-to-God alcoholic; I never got a formal diagnosis, did I?—and I'm your boss. Not exactly the best match for a bright, handsome young researcher."

"You think I'm handsome?"

"Danny..."

"Sorry. Is that all?"

"I think that's more than enough," Jo says tartly. "I just need to know that if we're going to do—whatever this is—you're certain it's really what you want. I know the Kirsty thing didn't work out—"

"There never was a Kirsty thing. Not really."

"That's not the point, Danny. The point is that you'd be better off with almost anyone who isn't me, but you have a tendency to get a bit..."

Danny pulls a face. "God, please don't say 'obsessed.' I've heard enough of that from Scott."

"No, not obsessed. Just...more attached to the idea of someone than the reality."

"Believe me, Jo, after all these years, I know what the reality of you is like." He rubs her arm, a bit clumsily, to reassure her. "You've got enough to worry about. You don't have to add me to the list. I promise. I know what I want."

"So do I," Jo says, and leans into him for a kiss, a long, deep one that lasts until he starts to think maybe it's not too soon for a second round, if she'll let him.

"What do we do now?" he asks when she finally turns him loose.

"Go home," Jo says briskly, "and in seven hours come back and start working on that community action plan again." He must look as crestfallen as he feels, because she peers at him and then strokes his cheek with a surprisingly gentle touch. "When I say go home, Danny, I mean to the same place. You can come with me and stay the night if you like, at least this once."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. I'll work out a way for you to go in the morning without it being too obvious. And you had better start looking for a place of your own. You're too old to be living in a room in someone else's flat, and I'm not having sex with you there while Scott listens on the other side of the wall." Jo gives him a push, and he rolls to his feet and stands up to avoid falling off the sofa, holding his still-unzipped trousers up with one hand. "Knickers, please."

Danny fishes them out of his pocket and hands them to her, and she puts them back on and starts smoothing down her skirt and doing up her buttons, making herself presentable for the walk through the building.

"I've got a condition for you too," he says, watching her.

"What's that?"

"I want you to talk to someone about the drinking, for real this time. I'll always be here for you, but I might not always be enough." Even in the low light, he can see her tense up at this, but he presses on anyway. "Just try, Jo. If it turns out you don't need it, then you don't have to carry on, but at least give it a go."

There's a long pause, and then she nods. "All right, look into it and make an appointment for me, and I'll go. Put it in the diary."

"Thanks."

Jo puts her hands on her hips and cocks her head at him, eyebrows raised. "Anything else?"

"Yeah," Danny says, grinning. "Can I hold your hand in the lift?"

"Oh God."

"How about in the cab?"

"We'll see."

"It's a start," Danny says, and switches the desk lamp off.


End file.
